


Magnificum Vinculum

by Nanagrb



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bellarke, Blood, F/F, F/M, Grounder Bellamy Blake, Grounder Clarke Griffin, M/M, Magic, Markings, No Ark Station, No Skaikru, Rituals, Smut, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:16:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanagrb/pseuds/Nanagrb
Summary: As per each Samein, the ritual took place. Only this time, Clarke, presumed future heda of the Delphi Clan, would be one of the earthpeople finding her Spirit-Mate. She had obligations towards her people, their safety, as much peace as she could provide, and the respect of their traditions.Only, traditions, tales and expectations don't prepare you for the grand and terrifying reality of the bond. Especially not when the bonded on the other side is Bellamy Blake, high warrior of the Rock Line Clan.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> First, thanks for giving it a shot. This will be my first longlasting fanfiction about Bellarke. I have other works (well, not on this account...) about this OTP and others, but had never felt ready to write a lengthy piece like the one I am starting right now. 
> 
> I'm creating a whole new spin on the entire 100 universe, so this will be entirely AU. The grounder culture remains in huge parts, but there will be modifications, huge ones, such as some kind of magic, an Order dedicated to it, and soulmates. If that is not your cup of tea, I understand it totally. If I do make grammar or spelling mistakes, please feel free to point it out for me, I don't have a Beta and sometimes you just miss the error.
> 
> There will be translations at the end of each chapter for each new term (from the true trigedaslang created for the show and my own creations). 
> 
> Sorry for the lenghty note!

As she was heading towards the Circle, precisely 15 minutes before Samein, deep into the earth through the ancient tunnel made by the old civilization, lit only by the torches handled by her guards, trepidation was the only thing Clarke could feel running throughout her body. She was channeling all her willpower not to let anything of the myriad of emotions currently coursing in her show through. Reasoning herself by logical arguments won't work, she knows, she has already tried that. 

 

The next-in-line heda of her own clan, Delfikru, can't let any weakness reach her face, especially not the Wanheda of all 12 clans, even when confronted with such a life-changing ritual. She knew the basic technicalities of the Mate rite, knew that she would be reaching her Spirit-Mate and share their Sense, knew that blood will be involved and a purifying will take place. Still, it didn't ease any of the tension that has amounted in her since her 20 th birthday, three months prior to the current Samein. Knowing the rationality, however, couldn't stop the anxiousness and anger from getting to her gut at the thought of not being in control of the situation, not choosing her Spirit-Mate, and having to depend on someone to keep her life.

 

She didn't survive those twenty years by letting someone else be the keeper of her health and life force, and now, she couldn't not do it. Her future  _houmoun_ , would share half of those, and her theirs. This only provoked more questions running through her head, what if her Spirit-Mate was unhealthy? What if they were in a precarious situation? And, more importantly, what if they were  _weak_ ? 

 

Weakness has no place in Clarke's, Wanheda's, life. And she won't ever allow her death to come so soon. Not when her people depended so much on her.

 

After the seemingly unending, and yet too short, trek towards the main cavern, reserved only for the highest ranked  _Wainse_ , those who will see for the first time, of the celebrated Samein. 

 

She was greeted by the heda of the  _Keryonvoucha_ order, those who devoted themselves to the  _Ufskai_ , the higher power that leads and bonds every  _Keryon_ on its ground, the spirit present in each life fighting or losing its fight for life, the energy living in each thing. The order is the only entity capable of doing the ritual, and is the only  body, other than the Heda  herself, entirely neutral and living amongst the twelve clans.

 

Still, that didn't mean Clarke trusted them much more than any other enemies. She saw from the corner of her eyes her guards exiting the cavern, leaving her alone with the devotee. 

 

“Wanheda.”

 

She didn't say anything, she didn't need to, they had no names nor affiliation, only their markings, circular lines on their bare heads, proved their rank amongst their own order. This particular one had six rings around his skull. Clarke only put her hands forward, palms up, per tradition as a sign of peace and unarmed intentions.

 

“Here comes Clarke of Delfikru, bare hands and open eyes.”

 

The Keryonvoucha stared gazed through her eyes, deep to her soul and turned around, walked, leading her to the white still water laying in the circular pond she saw when she walked in. He stopped and turned towards her, a bowl of glowing green-blue liquid thrumming in his hands. While he began chanting, praying to the Ufskai to allow his subject his benevolence by concluding the bond he created during this Samein, he dipped his two forefingers in it and drew a circle on her forehead. This circle of life awoke the one she had for ten years around her navel, as if summoning it and telling it is time for you to grow. Purging all the other noises that could parasite the ritual.

 

The chant died down and the man opened his eyes, his glowing eyes. She didn't react, of course she had much more of a tight rein on her body, but still, she was unprepared for the true power she witnessed in those eyes.  Then, he reached for the blade that hung previously as a necklace around his neck, and drew with blood crossing lines on both of her hands. The pain meant nothing to Clarke, it wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time she bled freely.

 

“Clarke of Delfikru, enter the gate.”

 

Clarke took a step forward and rose her hands to the clasp on her chest that kept the only cloth covering her together. She heard the soft thud of the rich red garment reaching the sandy stone floor. She stood bare during a short second, with only her feet in the odd liquid, the skin of her front entirely unmarked and void of any jewelry.

 

Slowly, she laid down in the rich and full feeling white milky water with only her face and the glowing circle on it peeking out of it.

 

The Keryonvoucha stood next to her, right hand glowing blue-green aligned with its concentric counterpart and slowly lowered it down. Her head, seemingly by its own, went underneath the surface. An odd stillness, like the calm before the storm, invaded her, and was disturbed only for a brief moment by a distant echo of a voice giving her orders.

 

“Merge.” 


	2. The Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ritual takes place, and suddenly she is more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! I'm posting a little earlier than expected today since I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have throughout this whole remaining week!
> 
> There aren't any new trigedaslang vocabulary this chapter!
> 
> Hope you like this continuation!

When her 10 th Samein was celebrated, there wasn't such a grand ritual. No robes, no glowing liquid, and no white pond. It was simple, practical and yet powerful in its own right.

 

Even though theirs is a society of warriors where children are oftentimes tough from a young age, taught to kick, bite, and slice early, it wasn't until their tenth year passed that they were, traditionally, considered as able bodied and of possession of their own mind. Thus, it was the Samein of claimings.

 

Where a child claimed their growth, where they became more. Where the new person claimed their strength in front of their families and hedas by carving themselves with a sharp heated knife the circle around their navels. 

 

It was, more importantly, the Samein of Claiming, where, after the bloody ring was cut, a member of the Keryonvoucha order would come and rub a paste made of the earth of their home, the embers of the everlasting fire in the center of each village, the water that every life depends on, the air present all around, and then finally bound altogether by the ever present Ufskai, on each of the old children laying around the sacred fire.

 

Clarke remembers lying on the warm soil, trying not to show how anxious and nervous she was, looking to her left at the mystery the new girl represented, Raven she thought was her name, that came out of nowhere, by herself, while still bearing the lines and colors of a young unmarked, and still in training, warrior from Delfikru: a red arrow down her forehead and black earlobes.

 

She remembers the chanting of a rough and ethereal voice coming from the green clad man circling around the pit of fire and not far from their young heads. She remembers the burning sensation coursing through her and then centering around her navel. She remembers how much strength she put then in flexing her jaw, so that she could swallow back the desperate scream of pain that wanted to get out of her raw throat. 

 

She remembers waking as if from a dream where the center of the world had somehow been split in two parts, where she walked on a path leading to another, broader road, where she had felt someone next to her. Nevertheless, it hadn't fundamentally changed her perceptions nor her daily life.

 

She had opened her eyes to the sight of a blackish green and blue raised scar on her abdomen signifying she had a Spirit-Mate waiting for her somewhere. A Spirit-Mate she would have to wait to meet for a long, long time. Her then 10 year old mind, even though more mature than most, had been appalled at the thought of such a long wait, now it almost seemed too early.

 

She had thought for the three months gap in between her birthday and her 20 th Samein, that even though there were major differences in the upholding of the magic, the feel of the Samein of Confirmation wouldn't differ so much from the Claiming one. That, although painful, it would be just as relatively easy as before. That, even though she would, somehow, judging by each story she could get a grasp on, meet her future houmoun during the rite, it wouldn't have a higher consequence on her life than every possibility she had already calculated and accounted possible solutions for.

 

For once in her life, she would easily admit to those willing to listen how wrong she had been.

 

Once she had been submerged in the milky substance, the quiet command “merge” proved to be the right term. She felt as if some force made her disperse herself within the substance of the liquid. Her entire being become one with a power she had only felt scraps of in her entire lifetime. Warmth, freshness, strength and fragility all fused inside her at once. Opposites that shouldn't work together made all the more sense now that they were juxtaposed. She felt extrapolated, out of her own body.

 

And then, she entered another one.

 

She could feel herself. Yet, she couldn't. She could feel an other body. Yet, it wasn't hers.

 

The feeling began where the Claiming circle laid around her navel, the place of all beginnings when it came to Keryon bonds it seemed. A confusing paradox of burning and cooling expanded from there forward, growing on her stomach, then her ribs and hips. The strange combination of hurting and soothing all at once extended slowly on her mound and breasts causing the most delightful pleasurable pain. It grew towards her legs, shoulders, knees and arms.

 

All the while Clarke trembled inside, shook from the power engulfing her, yet she was confined by the white water.

 

Once the burning coolness reached her extremities an odd feeling of sharing took place, as if her body was only half hers from this point forward. She could feel her arms, legs, torso, neck just as she did before, and yet she felt both distanced from it and much more connected to it.

 

All of a sudden, the previously mild concoction of burn and frost took an all other level and mercilessly invaded her skull. Clarke felt herself opening her head, letting it be simultaneously an anchor and a launching point. An explosion of senses befuddled her mind. She could see through two different points, she could hear two different silences. Everything was multiplied. She could feel through another mind.

 

Her own self was nothing and everything at once. She was her own and at the same time claimed by someone else.

 

Their perceptions and minds became one shared Sense. Their Keryons merged and became a wholeness by itself.

 

And, as if awakening from an indefinite slumber, Clarke emerged with a gasp and a staggered expression, with only one thing on her lips.

 

_“ Bellamy.”_


	3. Laying down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry guys! I suck, I know. Without getting into too much detail, those past two weeks were crazy, crazy hectic. I'm sorry that I'm posting so late!
> 
> I plan to find a way to at least better organize myself so that the posting can be regular.
> 
> There will be a vocab at the end if anybody needs.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this new chapter!

Soft dimmed light and a heavy silence broken by the pit-patter of feet outside of the room were the first things Clarke registered as she woke up on the morrow. Haziness and confusion still held her tightly, although she couldn't tell if they were due to the deep slumber she just emerged from or the earth-shattering night she experienced before the aforementioned sleep. 

Recollections of the return to her house or even how she came to her bed were vague and fuzzy at best. She remembered as if through a fog the walk back from the caves, the darkness of the night only lightened up by the torches held by people. The soft flame induced lighting revealing shapes and faces she couldn't define entirely, still shattered too much by what she just learned. 

She remembers herself walking amongst her other peers from Delfikru, that just as her wore expressions of befuddlement, sometimes apprehensive joy or even angered confusion on their faces after their own meetings with the Keryonvouchas and a bath of their own to reveal their Spirit-Mate.

All of them twenty years of age, some leaning on their twenty ones in just a few days or weeks. 

All of them finally with an answer to a question that festered for ten years in their minds: who was their other part? 

Months, weeks or days (for the lucky few born near the Samein) of trepidation, were finally ended for every single one of them, and yet none seemed relieved.

None truly conscious of how much this night would change everything in their lives.

She remembers vaguely seeing a small section of the fifty three Wainses having their rituals that night, sitting down, or leaning on a rock to hold themselves somewhat up. Arms hugging themselves, bodies curled up as if a protection from nothingness. Faces caved and carved by disbelief and horror. And all of them wearing a new and heavy, so heavy, load on their shoulders telling of the ground shattering realization that their Spirit-Mates perished before their Samein of Confirmation. Before they could even see them, hear them, or feel them. With the blurring lights of the torches only one emotion connected the entire group: grief.

Grief for the ten years spent in waiting. Grief for the possibility of love and warmth. Grief for the connection that each and every one of them, even those that didn't necessarily believe in the perfection of the Spirit-Bond preached to them for the entirety of their lives, were taught to wait and hope for. 

In hindsight, laying in her bed and feeling that overpowering thread connecting her to Bellamy, feeling every little particle of her yearning for every small part of him, feeling a kinetic power urging her to connect with the other part of them, Clarke only feels embarrassment and shame when she recalls all those times she wished there had been a mistake, that she hadn't a spirit-mate, or that he or she died, that she wouldn't ever have to meet them or share her life with them. 

Even though she loathed it in some measure, that connection, that feeling of completeness filling an emptiness she wasn't even aware of feeling, was something she could never regret having, however much she hated that it was even there or who the recipient of the bond was. Clarke felt silliness and childishness exuding from those past misguided thoughts, especially now that she could witness with her own eyes the effects of the harrowing experience it was to lose that special being even when you didn't know them. 

She had always know in the back of her mind that the person she would share her spirit with would be her houmoun. She had always been taught that. It was expected. 

However, Clarke thought that every expectation she was conditioned to have about the bond between Spirit-Mates was shattered when the painful realization of what her mother did to her houmoun, her kind, strong and beloved father, transgressed every rule she knew about keryon mates. 

“Your bonded cannot hurt you.”  
“You will always be protected Clarke. Even more when you find your spirit-mate.”  
“You will only feel love for the rest of your life once you complete the Samein.”   
“There will always be someone completely loyal to you.”

Were all things she heard multiple times throughout her young life. Some were said coldly, some mockingly (especially during the long hours spent fighting with her rivals) some in a way destined to be comforting. But every one was stated as if it was a fact that couldn't ever be denied. 

And yet, Abby, the mother she loved with her whole heart, betrayed the man they both loved the most. The center of their universes, the stone that grounded their family. 

Even though it began the abrupt opening of her eyes to the multiple flaws in everything she thought she knew, even though it led her to see clearly how wrong it was at different occasions since then, Clarke never realized before this morning that somewhere in the back of her mind a part of her still expected all those beautifully deceptive words to be true.

Now, as she was slowly getting out of her bed and walking towards the mirror she placed at the entry of her room after collecting it from Mount Weather, she couldn't really imagine Bellamy, the now constant presence in a corner of her mind, being what was generally considered a traditional houmoun.

She couldn't imagine, just out of nowhere, somehow having such a relationship with him. The kind where both parties shared fun, loving glances. The kind where they would raise and train children they would have made shortly after finally getting to each other. The kind where they would be lighthearted and joyous people. The one time she had seen him, in Polis fighting a duel, Bellamy seemed just as serious, dedicated and grave as her. Or maybe it was just that particular instance, she couldn't know (yet).

And neither could she imagine her people being as welcoming and accepting of her supposedly future houmoun as they would with any other bonded amongst the 53 that went though the Samein of Confirmation last night.

Clarke had always been aware that her status as Wanheda would put any, if still alive at the moment of the ritual, future Spirit-Mate of hers in danger. Not only in immediate physical danger caused by the multitude of people wary of her looking for a weakness they could exploit, but also in a wider kind of danger, the kind only select people plotting and scheming in the shadows could create.

She wasn't particularly proud of her titles, or what led her to having them, nor was she inclined to flaunt them unnecessarily but Clarke was Wanheda of the entire coalition, she had ties in Polis (some she would like not to think about), rivals amongst the other nightbleeders, she was, furthermore, considered unofficially as the possible future heda of Delfikru, which also inexorably would have caused a threat to her bonded life's because of the heated relations her clan had, especially with Boudalan, the Rock-Line Clan.

And to think that now, that same enemy would be the home of the person destined to be her dearest ally in life… 

She knew who Bellamy was. 

That was one of the main, if not the main, reasons as to why she was as visibly shaken last night. Clarke prided herself in her control. You can't survive as long as she did in Polis and in her own clan without hardening yourself and what you let the world see. Yet, Clarke had been as noticeably floored as the simplest civilian that has never seen blood or played in politics before.

She could only imagine how Marcus, their current leader of Delfikru, would react once he learns that her promised was the High Warrior of Boudalan. The same man that killed his most promising student during a fight in the arena. The same man Marcus swore to get revenge on. 

Yet, as she was standing in front of her reflection slowly admiring the lines and curls whirling around each other and creating the purest art on her body, Clarke couldn't ever imagine abnegating the bond linking her up with Bellamy.

It was too strong. She could already feel him in her head... And she hasn't even met him yet!

Marks were the indicator not only that you had a bonded somewhere, but also, and perhaps most importantly, they showed the strength and nature of a connection between the bonded. 

Clarke knew that they were not in fact a guarantee that everything would be fine, she knew too much, has seen too much. She watched couples with dominating and encompassing markings fight and hurt and betray each other. She knew that very well.

But she also knew that those that bore marks as invading as hers, were always an evidence, be that in a good or bad way. What made Bellamy and her such an inescapable truth, Clarke knew not as of yet, nor was she really prepared to think about the enormity of what it meant. Too much too fast.

Absentmindedly, she traced with the tip of her finger the circle she was already accustomed to, and then she went further and further. She followed every dip, every curve, every line that painted across her body the imagery of something beautiful in its fascinating complexity. 

Clarke remembers feeling disbelief amongst the chaos of the various emotions coursing through her when she saw for the first time the black whirls reaching her forearm and her shins. Only once in her lifetime has she admired such an expanse of art on somebody before. And the old woman bearing them was infamous, she was a hardened warrior carrying battle scars and grief over her faces. She was also one of the few that killed their bonded themselves. (Clarke furtively wished she wouldn't have to ever do such a thing, while still preparing herself to the very possible probability she will.) 

However much she sometimes wished for peacefulness and simplicity, it seemed that only particularity was fated to be in her destiny. Her, that up until yesterday was one of the most reluctant Wainses amongst the entire twelve clans, was the one that got one of the most coveted kind of mark that existed.

What an irony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Delfikru: the Delphi Clan.
> 
> Boudalan : the Rock Line Clan.
> 
> Samein: a new version of Samhain, which actually marks the new year.
> 
> Heda: Commander/leader.
> 
> Wanheda: Commander of death.
> 
> Houmoun : wife/husband/spouse/ (in this case) life partner. 
> 
> Keryon: Soul/Spirit.
> 
> Keryonvoucha: the Spirit witness.
> 
> Wainses: those who see for the first time.
> 
> PS: if you see any grammatical mistakes please tell me so that I can correct it asap. Thanks!

**Author's Note:**

> (T) indicates the Trigedaslang created for the 100.
> 
> Delfikru: the Delphi Clan. (T)
> 
> Samein: a new version of Samhain, which actually marks the new year.
> 
> Heda: Commander/leader. (T)
> 
> Wanheda: Commander of death. (T)
> 
> Houmoun : wife/husband/spouse. (T)
> 
> Keryon: Soul/Spirit. (T)
> 
> Keryonvoucha: (voucha : witness (T)) the Spirit witness.
> 
> Wainse: those who see for the first time.
> 
> Ufskai : (uf : power (T), skai : sky, high (T)) higher power
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this short preamble, and of course any reaction is welcome if you do wish to share. I plan to post regurlarly, maybe at least once a week, it is yet to be fully determined. However, provided that life doesn't get too hectic, the first true chapter should come quite soon, so stay tuned!


End file.
